Final Flashcards
The shape of teeth tells us…
something about the animals ate and how they process their food-can help you infer what they ate, their diet-digestion, breaking down nutrients
2 parts of digestion
-physical digestion (mostly teeth-but for some dinos not at much) and chemical digestion (in the stomach)
Dinosaurs (and other groups) have a ___ dentition
thecodont dentition
thecodont dentition
teeth set in sockets -means that their tooth has a root that’s in a socket in the jawbone-like our teeth-all archosaurs have that
most vertebrates are ____ (in relation to dentition)
homodont
homodont
- means teeth same shape throughout jaw
- almost all animals have this characteristic
- so are (most) dinos
most mammals are _____ (in relation to dentition)
heterodont
heterodont
- different shaped teeth throughout your mouth
- canines-front teeth to cut, molars and premolars-can be blades or flat
heterodontosaurus
- whole group of dinos that are heterodonts
- means the organisms can eat a variety of diff food-diff tooth shapes allow them to process diff kinds of food
2 types of tooth replacement:
Polyphyodont, Diphyodont
Polyphyodont
(generations of teeth-fish-amphibians, reptiles)
-tooth replacement continues throughout life (replace teeth throughout life-constantly losing teeth and getting new ones)
Diphyodont
(mammals)
-only 2 generations of teeth-like humans-baby teeth then adult teeth, if get adult teeth removed then no new teeth will grow in
dinos were ____
polyphyodonts
One the adaptations for better chewing in mammals (polyphyodonts or diphyodonts?):
being Diphyodonts-they have only two sets of teeth, juvenile and adult.
- usually have fewer baby teeth and more adult teeth
- all mammals do this-have 2 generations of teeth
- having these 2 generations of teeth means once adult teeth come in, the top and bottom teeth will always be the same teeth touching each other-means top and bottom teeth fit together like a little puzzle-precise occlusion
- This allows for precise occlusion
precise occlusion
-the bringing of opposing surfaces of the teeth of the two jaws into contact, i.e. when lower teeth meet upper teeth as the mouth is closed
Diphyodonty and heterodonty allowed for…
…chewing in mammals. This was a key adaptation for processing plant matter
chewing is pretty ___ in the tetrapod world
- unique
- most animals don’t chew-most animals take big hunk of meat off and swallow it
- mammals chew-most animals don’t
- allows for processing plant matter
Plant matter is ___
- tough
- The cuticle on leaves is hard to break down
- Also, grasses may have lots of grit
- AND leaves are nutritionally poor, so you have to eat a lot of them…
how do mammals solve this (plants being tough to digest/nutritionally poor)?
-Mammals solve this with hypsodonty (tall teeth) -need to grind up plant material a lot-covered in dirt-will wear down teeth a lot-so long teeth so have time that even if wear down will still have teeth-also grinding will give them ridges, helpful in more grinding
so, herbivore teeth tended to be ____
- tall, and relatively flat with lots of ridges
- lots of ridges-scrape against each other, that’s how they grind up plants
- elephants do this, so do rats
dinosaurs couldn’t chew like mammals cuz didn’t have those grinding teeth-so how did they process plant material? Sauropods:
have gastroliths -basically they swallow rocks, have area in gut that’s muscular-plant material came into stomach with rocks, squeeze it all together to break down plant material using the rocks and grit
dinosaurs couldn’t chew like mammals cuz didn’t have those grinding teeth-so how did they process plant material? Thyreophorans and ceratopsians
gut fermentation -swallowed plants whole and let them rot in their guts-once they start to rot, releases some of the nutrients and able to get nutrients after plant has broken down over natural process of plants breaking down over time-some primates did this too
dinosaurs couldn’t chew like mammals cuz didn’t have those grinding teeth-so how did they process plant material? Hadrosaurs and Ceratopsians:
dental batteries
Dental Batteries
- some groups found a way around this Polyphyodont thing to find a way to chew-not like mammals do but found a unique way to chew-developed these things called dental batteries-basically a line of teeth-growing from the bottom up-older teeth at the top-at the top do the grinding-conveyor belt of teeth (works cuz constantly growing new teeth)-teeth constantly growing, grinding them down at the top
- Hadrosaurs and Ceratopsians